Page 56 of Roll With The Punches

He hadn’t had one this bad in a while, though.

He felt a little better after that. When he left the bathroom, Jeff was asleep again. So instead he turned off the lamp and returned to the kitchen.

“Better?” Stuart asked.

“A little. We’ll see how he is in the morning. I might make him go to a walk-in clinic or something. Grace, I think after dinner you should probably go home. The two of you might want to hang out at your house the next couple of days. And make sure you’re washing your hands, too.”

“Yes, Pop.” She and Em exchanged a glance.

“Well, the last thing you two need is to get sick.”

Jeff didn’t even wake up to eat dinner. But Tuesday morning, while Brandon had planned to order him to go get checked out, Jeff’s fever seemed to have broken overnight and he claimed to be feeling better.

Emma had already left for her morning swim practice, and Brandon and Stuart stared at Jeff in the kitchen.

“You sure?” Brandon asked.

“Yeah. Maybe it was a delayed reaction to the stress of Saturday or something.” He shrugged. “I’ll live. Oh, did the attorney get with you yesterday?”

“Yeah. He’s already working on it. More money to throw at Tracey’s poor life choices.” He sipped his coffee.

Stuart nodded. “Yesterday, before you both got home, and while Emma was out of the room, Grace told me Emma ispissed. I mean, massively pissed.”

“She hugged Tracey when we left,” Brandon said.

“Yeah, but now that she’s had time to think about it, she’s ready to cut her mom totally off. Emma unfriended her again on Facebook, which Grace said really made Emma upset. She feels like she started to trust her again and got smacked upside the head for it.”

“I know how she feels. Sorry life’s a little crazy right now.”

Stuart smiled. “It’s still a way better life than I had before I met you, so I’m happy.”

Brandon set his coffee mug aside and pulled the men in for their group hug. “I guess unless she goes to Grace’s overnight, we’re back to no nakey weekends.”

“There’s going to be a private party at Cali’s house in a couple of weeks,” Stuart said. “We RSVP’d as maybes.”

“Isn’t that going to be the weekend after I’m out of town, though?”

“Oh. Shoot.”

He ruffled both their hair. “You two can still go and have fun. I’ll stay home with Em.” He smiled. “Jeff’s in charge.”

Jeff waggled his eyebrows at Stuart. “Oooh, baby. Are you in trouble now.”

“Don’t break our beta before I get home, though. But, yeah, feel free to RSVP as going.”

On his way to work, Brandon’s cell rang. He almost answered it without looking, but fortunately spotted the caller ID before he did.

Pat.

He sent it to voice mail, his good mood immediately ruined. No way in hell would he talk to that sonofabitch.

At the next light, he thumbed the voice mail alert and put it in speaker mode.

“Listen to me, you better not be thinking about taking us back to court. You do that, we’ll be telling everyone you’re a pervert, and living with two guys, and you’ll lose custody of Emma. Your little fuckboys will lose their jobs, too. So you might as well hand her over to us now and this can stay quiet.”

Stunned, he played it again before the first giggles broke free. He had to pull over, he started laughing so hard. So hard he could barely save the voice mail as an audio file to e-mail it to Ed.

Then he texted him.Check your e-mail. I’ll wait.